


A tale of two soldiers

by Lazuliblur



Series: Torushina [5]
Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dragon Slayer origins, Gen, movie verse, plus mentions of assorted others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 07:17:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazuliblur/pseuds/Lazuliblur
Summary: Chesta has been with Folken’s army for a little over a week when he meets Gatti for the first time. His first impression of him is that he is quiet and friendly, if a little shy. Adjusting to the Black Dragon Clan’s rigid structure and trying to find out where he belongs in the midst of it, just like Chesta.





	A tale of two soldiers

Chesta has been with Folken’s army for a little over a week when he meets Gatti for the first time. His first impression of him is that he is quiet and friendly, if a little shy. Adjusting to the Black Dragon Clan’s rigid structure and trying to find out where he belongs in the midst of it, just like Chesta.

“Excuse me,” Gatti says, his politeness at odds with the scorched outskirts of the city that their siege has occupied, “do you know where the barracks of the third squadron are?”

Chesta only knows the answer because he has been staying with the second squadron.

“Go left at the end of this road,” Chesta says. Gatti’s lips move, committing the words to memory by soundless repetition. “The banners in front of the tents are numbered.”

“Thank you.” Gatti’s eyes don’t quite rise to meet Chesta’s. He looks around them, then points down the road that Chesta had indicated. “That way?”

“That’s right. And then left,” Chesta repeats when the confusion does not quite leave Gatti’s eyes. “Are you new around here?”

The question goes unanswered, but Chesta senses no ill will in it. Gatti is just too focused to have heard him as he walks down the road, repeating the directions under his breath.

* * *

Chesta crosses paths with him again at the hospital the following week.

The General that Emperor Folken has assigned him to advise is happiest ignoring Chesta’s existence and, since Chesta does not know what to do with free time, the young seer falls back on his old temple routines: meditation, study, physical labour. The medics are glad for the extra pair of hands when he visits, helping to spread sand to keep the floors from becoming slippery or replacing the sheets on the used cots. Refina, the Lieutenant in charge of the medical crew even lets him assist with the simpler treatments. She insists that he is too young to observe the more serious cases, though, so she sends him away during the periods of greatest affluence.

On his way out, he sees Gatti sitting by the door, staring down at his hands.

Chesta has been wary of making friends since arriving at the camp, and especially since he had started working at the hospital. The monks would have preached against the temptations of worldly attachments. Chesta just opposes the fact that a great deal of soldiers who go into the hospital never leave of their own power. He stops anyway.

“Hey,” Chesta says. The other gives no response. “Remember me?”

Gatti looks up. He searches Chesta’s face, but long seconds pass before he answers.

“You’re…” He frowns. “I asked you where the barracks were the other day.”

“That’s me,” Chesta confirms with a smile. “My name’s Chesta.”

“I’m Gatti.” His voice is warm, but there is something expectant about his stare. Chesta thinks that he looks like he is waiting to be told how to feel about this new person approaching him. Chesta finds it peculiar, but does not let it keep him from taking the seat next to him.

“So what are you doing here?”

Gatti turns his face until Chesta has a view of the ear furthest from him. The skin of the neck around that area is red and blistered, a fresh burn that extends lower, beyond the collar of his shirt.

“I deserved it, really,” he explains ruefully. “I missed the wake up call and was late for drills. The Sergeant wasn’t happy.” The smile slides off his face. “I’m not very— I don’t know what to do most of the time.”

“Where are you from?” Chesta asks.

Gatti is older than him and comfortable enough in his uniform to have been wearing it longer than Chesta has worn his, but Chesta knows something about adapting to new environments. The monks of his temple had sold him to Folken and, before that, his parents had sold him to the monks. He is used to being shuffled around like an unwanted spare and he knows that not all the other guys are in the army by choice either. Getting Gatti to talk about his past might do more to help him center on the present than leaving him to think about the details of his current situation.

“Fanelia,” he says. He reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a scrap of torn fabric to show Chesta. The colours have mostly faded to a uniform light brown, but somewhere in there Chesta can still make out the kind of green-and-gold geometrical design that the country had once been famous for—before Folken had taken the throne by force and razed it to the ground. “I’ve been with Lord Folken since the beginning but…” A smile ghosts across his face and he shrugs. It makes him look young. “The other guys all know that I’m dumb. They don’t want me around, so nobody tells me what to do.” He spreads the piece of cloth over his knee, patting it lovingly, and Chesta finally recognises it as a piece of a sleeve. “Do you like it? My mum made it.”

His smile is so bright that it has to pull on his burns. Chesta does not comment, though.

“Gatti?” One of the medics calls. “Come on, we’ll see you now.”

Chesta gets up and smiles at Gatti before he can follow the medic.

“Good luck,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll figure it all out.”

* * *

Chesta sees Gatti again frequently, now that he is looking—even in armour, Gatti stands out among his fellows. He smiles when he sees Chesta, but it is clear to the younger boy that his struggles remain from how his comrades keep him at the edges of the group. One place where Chesta does not see him again is at the hospital, and for that he is grateful. He tries to make friendly conversation, sparse as it is, whenever possible.

It becomes harder to worry about Gatti, though, once Chesta’s own problems catch up with him. Word of his General’s lack of results in the siege and his complaints about having a “cursed” seer under his command have reached Emperor Folken’s ears and he is not pleased. As a result, the General is quietly replaced and Chesta is moved to a different unit.

The Dragon Slayers have a very different dynamic than what Chesta has experienced so far, not least of all because their leader, Captain Dilandau, seems to march to the beat of his own drum. He is demanding and not exactly friendly. There is something off about him, in the low number of troops assigned to him and in the high level of interest that Folken has in him, personally—but he does the same work that his soldiers do and he knows all of their names, which is more than can be said of the other commanders that Chesta has come across. The first order he gave Chesta was to stay alive, which he found inspiring of trust. It made Lord Dilandau a leader that he does not mind following.

He hopes that Gatti has a captain like that looking out for him.

* * *

With Chesta being put through countless drills to get him up to par on his horse riding and sword fighting skills, two months pass before he meets Gatti again. He runs into him in the one place he had hoped he would not: the hospital.

Chesta has come in to stock up on herbs for his migraines—while the previous General had wanted nothing to do with Chesta’s powers, Lord Dilandau is intent on squeezing every advantage he can out of them—when he sees Gatti sitting alone on one of the cots. The left side of his face is swollen badly enough that he cannot open that eye.

“Gatti?” Chesta calls, all his worries surfacing at once.

Gatti squints his good eye. “Chesta?” His smile is crooked and grim. Unlike before with the burn, this time his pain shows very well—and also his surprise.

“Hey there,” Chesta says. “Is it okay if I join you?”

Gatti bobs his head without hesitation.

“It’s fine,” he says.

Chesta looks around for a chair, but there does not seem to be any nearby. “Scoot over,” he says.

Gatti moves at once and Chesta wonders if he is always this relieved to be given a clear instruction or just happy to see a friendly face. Either way, Chesta finds himself caring too much about the answer—and that is not something that he should be concerned about.

Maybe he has grown more comfortable than he expected to among these people, but it was soldiers like Gatti who threatened to kill the monks in his temple and laid ruin to so many others who failed to comply. The more he knows them, though, the more he sees them as ordinary people and the harder it is to muster the hate. Especially given that the monks had discarded of him as a sacrifice.

The room is quiet and mostly empty as there has been no activity on the siege lately. The smell of medicine is residual here at best. Supplies have been running low.

“Still having trouble finding your way around, then?” Chesta asks.

Gatti looks at his feet, showing Chesta the side of him that is splotchy red and yellow. The blue flames illuminating the room are unable to conquer the thickest shadows, making it look worse than before.

“It’s getting better. It’s when I move to a new unit that I can’t keep up. Everything changes,” he pauses to painfully swallow some spit. “The others don’t bother me as much either. It’s better.”

There is something sad about the way he talks about himself, like it is not him who his comrades have beaten up or like it does not matter. Chesta tries to touch his cheek, carefully. Gatti flinches anyway.

“That must be hard to deal with.”

Gatti lowers his head.

“It’s all right,” Gatti says, very quietly. “The Sergeant said not to fight back. to let them do what they want. He said that they’d get bored and stop, so that’s what I do. The Sergeant was mad because the last time I fought back one of the others got hurt bad. I don’t want the Sergeant to be mad at me, so I just do as he says. It’s getting better.”

“I see,” Chesta says, nodding.

He had heard rumours about a scuffle among soldiers a while back that had ended with one of them getting his face pummelled into his skull. He wonders if that is what Gatti’s Sergeant was mad about. Discipline is tight around the camp and serious incidents like that do not break out often, from what Chesta has seen, so it is possible. Gatti certainly has the strength for it.

It is hard for Chesta to be afraid of him, though, when Gatti just seems so lost. Gatti sounds like he does not know better, like he is desperate to have someone help and reassure him.

“You’ll make it through this. We’re all struggling. And if you need help, or someone to talk to, you can come to me.”

Gatti’s response is not what Chesta had expected it to be. He startles and turns his face the other way. He is shaking—or maybe that is only the impression that the flickering candlelight gives.

“Gatti?” Chesta says, understanding. “I mean it, okay?”

Gatti recomposes himself and, when their gazes meet, Chesta knows without resorting to any supernatural powers that Gatti believes him. He smiles.

“Thank you,” Gatti says. His smile is still crooked and awkward, but true. “You are the first to—Thank you.”

Chesta grabs his herbs and leaves.

* * *

Chesta reports to Ryuon, Lord Dilandau’s second-in-command, the next morning with a request. He tells Chesta that he will speak to their Captain about it the next chance he gets and dismisses him. They have a mission to carry out that day, and more pressing matters to attend to than the fate of some soldier from another squad.

That evening, Chesta enters the mess hall to find Gatti waiting for him by the door. His face is less swollen now, darkened to painful shades of purple and green, but he looks different. Something has changed about his eyes. If Chesta had to name it, he would say that a sense of calm that had not been there before had settled.

They eat with the other Dragon Slayers. Their table is celebrating—that day’s victory had cleared the way to conquest and the siege is at an end. In their good mood, they treat Gatti like one of their own. Chesta finds that when he does not have to talk much, Gatti fits right in, and when he does say something that the others might think of as odd, they treat him the same anyway. All of them are different and all of them come from different backgrounds. They also know better than to cause trouble because of that. Lord Dilandau has seen to that.

* * *

Ryuon is true to his word and, in no time, Gatti is officially transferred to the Dragon Slayers. Chesta helps him get to where he needs to be but, as it turns out, Gatti has a surprising amount of talent with horses. So much so that Lord Dilandau has him help the others master particular maneuvers during training. In fact, with Gatti’s willingness to please and follow instructions, he and Lord Dilandau get along like a house on fire. What he is not as good at is handling a sword, but he makes up for his lack of technique with sheer brute force.

None of the other Dragon Slayers bother Gatti, but Chesta keeps an eye out anyway.

“Chesta,” Gatti whispers to him one day. “Can I— Can I tell you something?”

It is very early and Chesta is wrapping up his morning session of meditation before the others get up for the day.

“Of course, Gatti,” Chesta says, stretching his back. “What is it?”

Gatti tugs the old scrap of Fanelian cloth that he carries everywhere from under his pillow and gives it to Chesta.

“You can have it,” he says.

Chesta is reluctant to accept. The old cloth means nothing to him and a great deal to Gatti. He takes it anyway, because he knows that it would not have been offered if Gatti was not sure that that was what he wanted.

“It was my brother’s—my younger brother’s,” Gatti explains. Chesta, attempting to trace the fading patterns on the cloth, stops and looks up at his friend. Gatti had never mentioned having brothers before. “He’s dead, but he’s your age, I think. That reminds me of him.”

Chesta handles the fabric with extra care now, with a touch of reverence. He thinks he knows what Gatti is trying to say and he is honoured by it. If Chesta had any brothers, he hopes that they would be like Gatti, too.

Ryuon has started kicking lazy legs out of beds and strapping on the first pieces of his armour. Their quiet moment is at an end.

“What was his name?” Chesta asks.

“Roland,” Gatti says, pulling a shirt over his head, “but he insisted on Rolli.” He then gets up and hurries to the bathroom, to get there before the others.

“Thanks, Gatti.”

Chesta uncrosses his legs from a lotus position and walks over to the small rucksack that contains all of his belongings. He tucks Gatti’s gift between the cover and the first page of his prayer book. Then he hurries after his fellow Slayers before Ryuon can get anxious.


End file.
